Hotwheels Screamliner Custom Hotwheels

While I wait for paint and glue to harden, I thought I would take some pictures of a few projects I have snuck in over the past several months.

The first one is a Hotwheels Screamliner. I really like this casting, and it reminds me of an old boat-tail Talbot Lago, or something along those lines.

 It has great lines overall, and low swoopy design that I really liked.

 The intake stacks through the hood, and the chrome base along the wheel openings just stuck out to me. I know part of the base is the way it is manufactured. (Trust me, I spent a couple of hours trying to make it work my way....)

 Here are the three basic pieces. Body, Chassis, and interior/chrome pieces. I decided I was going to fill the opening in the hood, so the intake runners were "carefully" removed with a dremel grinding wheel.

 The next step was to separate the chrome piece. I wanted to keep the exhaust headers, and grill as chrome pieces, but I didn't like the little gap around the wheels wells. I also didn't feel the need to have the chrome running around the entire lower of the car.

 After lots of work with putty, sandpaper, and needle files, here is the finished result.

 It met what I was hoping for. Without the openings in the hood, and a little less chrome, it felt a less like a hotrod, and more like an elegant touring car.

 Struggled with whether or not to remove the fin, but in the end I decided to leave it. The shape flows nicely with the overall car and roofline.

A little bit of chrome silver pin-stripping helps accentuate the curved shape, and stands out against the dark green paint nicely. It is also a little reminiscent of the original printed tampos from the Hotwheels factory.

Peterbilt 352 Cabover

So during a recent trip to the local everything store.... I stumbled upon this little guy on sale.

 The mighty Peterbilt 352 Cabover. A great looking big rig (with 10 wheels, not 4) and decided to give it a try.
Now this is a snap-tite kit, and lower on detail and number of parts, but to me that was a little built in challenge... Can I make this look less like a cheap toy, and more like a higher priced kit.
And would be my first and only 1/32 scale kit in the collection.

Here's what is in the box. A couple of trees of light blue plastic, on black plastic tree, a chrome plated tree, and a single clear piece for the windshield. This might be a challenge....

With careful painting, several shades of black (flat black, semi-gloss, rubber, etc) the chassis was at least starting to look fairly convincing.

The kit came with no decals, just sticker. I didn't necessarily care for the ones shown on the box art, but I liked the overall shape, so I decided to try something along those lines.

Here is the cab all masked off, and several different shades of paint. I was going for a sunset fade look using reds, oranges and yellow. The yellow paint didn't "play nice" with the orange is was going over and left some little "dimples" in the paint, but I decided I liked it and left them.
Hard to see where where the masking tape is.

That's better. Without the tape, you can see where the design was masked off. Still wasn't sure I liked the design at this point. Had to keep reminding myself this is an in-expensive and fun build, so I went with it. In the end a coat of high gloss clear, brightened it up a bit.

Here is a picture taken with my phone of the test fit of the body on the chassis. Starting to look like a rig, but still has lots of little bits that need to go on.

And here she is.... All finished up, with the chrome bits, a few more details picked out with paint, and even used some of the stickers. The license plates on the front bumper at stickers.

The mirrors, horns, exhaust stacks, air tanks and lights and horns atop the cab do really fill this one out and make it believeable.

A few more of the kit supplied stickers add text to the diesel tanks, safety gear, and inspection stickers.

I even coiled up some colored wire, and added the air lines on the back of the cab.
Given the smaller scale of the kit, the overall finished model is not a whole lot larger than a 1/24 car, and fits nicely on the shelves with the rest of the collection.

On to the next!

Lamborghini Diablo

Wow! Is about all I can say to start this review.
This is the AMT/Ertl Lamborghini Diablo, kit # 6933. The date on the box is 1990.

I got this kit free from a friend who had it in storage for a number of years, and when they bought a house and were in process of moving, I got this as part of their downsizing.

The Diablo was a great car, and this kit fills a gap in my lineup of cars from the tractor manufacturer.

After building this kit, I am amazed at how poor the quality of this kit it. If all kits had been this bad 25 years ago, it's amazing anyone would ever stay with the hobby.

I consider myself to be a fairly competent modeler, and this one just plain wore me out....
The fit of the parts was bad, the instructions horribly vague, and parts were distressingly out of proportion.

 The kit 5-liter V-12 engine was completely chrome plated. A little fancy.... even for Lamborghini.

I toned it down by spraying the whole thing aluminum, and picking out some of the smaller details with contrasting colors. The wheels and tires I ended up simply super-glueing in place, as they wouldn't fit per the instructions. I also had to warm the tires in warm water in order to stretch them over the wheels. By this point I was starting to loose faith. Brakes and radiators were left off, and the interior got an overall coat of black paint, no decals were used or trim was painted.
Even toyed with the idea of simply painting the windows black.

Leaving off parts sped up the process a little (just to get it over with), but didn't solve the fit issues. The chassis didn't appear warped to me, but it might have been a little bit.
Several clamps and more super-glue was used to marry the chassis and body together.

By the end I was done. Left off the mirrors, windshield wipers, and other little bits that go on at the very end.

As you can see, overall the front suspension sits a little high, the front tires in particular seem a little tall in profile to my eye.

The orange makes the body-work and great shape stand out well. It's too bad it was just so frustrating to get to this point. Not sure on the history of this kit. Maybe it was worked up from a snap-tite kit, or a promo model and done in a rush.
Maybe mine was just old and warped, and didn't realized it. Definitely glad to have it off the table and working on a plan for what to build next.

As the expression goes.... Never look a gift horse (or in this case bull) in the mouth.

Jeep Wrangler Rubicon and 1968 Dodge Charger R/T HEMI

So it has been a little while since I put anything on here, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy.

It started a couple of week ago with a camping trip with my wife to a local State Park with a large lake, and well known sand-dune area. As we were camping we kept seeing all these amazing sand-dune rigs driving up and down the road.
So I got inspired to build this.

Jeep Rubicon

 Revell's Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. It comes right out of the box with the big offroad tires, rollcage, lights, bumpers and all the goodies.

Can barely make out the custom license plate

About the only two things I added that were not in the box are the "sand dune flag". A necessity so you don't run in to other trucks as you are cresting a dune. And the custom license plate.

I added some pastel powder to the tires and along the bottom edge of the chassis to make it look a little more like it has spent the day on the dune, rather than just been washed.

I also see a couple of small flaws. Apparently while handling, I must have crinkled the RUBICON decal on the passenger side. It also looks like the front bumper isn't aligned quite properly.

All in all, I was very happy with this build, and it went together quite easily.

And now THE BEAST.

I had been holding on to this one for a while, and decided that it was time to break it out.
Revell's 1968 Dodge Charger R/T.
My initial plan had been to build a little more subdued 440 car, but my wife convinced me that a more wild, 426 HEMI drag racer may be a little more fun.

It is built pretty straight from the box, as is my more typical building style. I left off the decals that stretch from the front fenders backwards into the door. I thought it was just a little too much black on a silver car.

This was another great kit that went together without any real drama or issues. Everything just went together where is was supposed to.

That 426 HEMI!

And the heart of the beast is the famous 426 HEMI engine.
It stands out nicely and really fills up the engine bay.
Again, I see I missed a couple of parts in this shot. Mainly the firewall. I didn't even notice until I started cleaning up my workspace, and there is was.... way too late to be fitted.
If I could find the upper radiator hose, that might be a nice touch.

Some day I'll learn how to make a wired distributor cap, and be able to add that to the top end, and really finish this one off nicely.

And now back to my typical closing....

What to build next?